1. Field of Disclosure
This disclosure relates in general to the field of location-based services and in particular to predicting geographic population density to provide and improve such services.
2. Description of the Related Art
Location-based services are growing in popularity. Many modern mobile devices, such as mobile telephones, are equipped with functionality allowing determination of the devices' geographic positions. This positioning information is used, in turn, to provide location-based services such as maps of the geographic areas proximate to the devices.
Geographic population density, defined as the number of people within a geographic area, can be used to enhance location-based services. For example, geographic population density can be used to estimate traffic congestion on roads within an urban area. Likewise, population density can be used to estimate the time required to find a parking space in an urban area.
Accurately determining geographic population density is difficult. Mobile phone usage within the geographic area can serve as a proxy for the number of people in the area. However, mobile phone data are sparse. The data do not indicate the number of people in the area, but rather the number of people using their mobile phones in the area. The mobile phone data are also noisy. A spike in mobile phone usage in a given area might indicate a high population density, or it might merely indicate that a greater-than-average number of people are using their mobile phones for random reasons. The data are also noisy as a result of the localization errors of individual mobile phones.